A few new bits

A few new pieces. I’ve been having strong urges to throw for months and just no time to do it. But a few weeks back I just had to sit down at my trusty wheel and get it out of my system! I threw some mugs and bottles. The mugs were a bit of a disaster, and the bottles were a bit of a surprise. Not my usual thing, but I sat them on a window sill near my desk and they’re slowly but surely growing on me. They're thrown from Southern Ice porcelain and inlaid with black slip.

Gwyn Hanssen Pigott at Phillip Bacon

Gwyn Hanssen Pigott's show opened at Phillip Bacon Galleries on Friday night. You can see some of the work on-line here, but if you're in the area I highly recommend heading in there for a look. Some beautiful new blues in the glaze palette, something almost retro about them. I was captivated. And momentarily considered putting myself into deep debt to buy a little set of three. I left before I did anything crazy.

The drought breakers

Curator of Pattern Recognition Andrea Higgins, and myself have decided we are the drought breakers. Invite us down for an artist talk sometime, and I guarantee you it will rain! It seems to happen everytime we head off on one of our Laurel and Hardy expeditions to talk about the exhibition. Last week we headed off to Gosford Regional Gallery - and yes, down it came! Not that I'm complaining. Most places we go really need the rain! The folks at Gosford did a wonderful job with the show, the gallery looked fantastic, and they also did a wonderful job keeping us well fed, well watered and well entertained.

Next day we were up at the crack of dawn and made a beeline for Sydney where we did a mad dash around all the galleries before flying back to sunny Brisvegas in the afternoon. Peter Cooley ceramics at Ray Hughes Gallery, The Bombay Sapphire Design Discovery Award at Object, a quick look at new gallery/retail space Pablo Fanque in Oxford Street (very nice), and finally Prima Vera at the Museum of Contemporary Art especially to have a gander at the lovely Honor Freeman's work (below) and a quick sprint around the Julie Rrapp show. Phew!

Honor Freeman "markers" slipcast porcelain

Honor Freeman 2005 "Tupperware: An airtight container for every occasion" Slipcast Porcelain

You can read a little more about Honor Freeman's recent adventures here.

Breaking the Mould

I’ve just spent a lazy but inspiring saturday afternoon curled up with my brand new book that I’ve been wanting to get my hands on for ages - Breaking the Mould: New approaches to Ceramics. It was worth the wait. It profiles over 60 contemporary ceramic artists, includes essays by Natasha Daintry, Rob Barnard and Clare Twomey, and has a stupendously good web directory in the back of most of the artists included. A damn good resource. Hours of fun. For all the family.

Barnaby Barford "Shit! Now I'm going to be really late" 2006

Some of my old favourites are in there including the very amusing and witty tableaus by Barnaby Barford (above), the evocative and melancholy figures of Irish artist Claire Curneen, Justin Novak’s disturbing and slightly gruesome disfigurines, Clare Twomey’s site-specific installations and Marek Cecula’s porcelain carpet and super great Burned Again series (below)

Marek Cecula, In Dust Real: Burned Again, Industrial Porcelain/Woodfired 2005

And some great work I hadn’t come across before – check these out: Isobel Egan, Damian O’Sullivan, Wai-Lian Scannell/SOOP and Kjell Rylander .

Damian O'Sullivan Delft Eye Patch

Lots of food for thought. I’m lost to ceramic la-la land for the rest of the day I think.

(You can see a great preview of the book here))

More Little Uns

Some new Little Un's, fresh out of the kiln!